Redrawing the map

On July 28th 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, starting a slaughter that would leave millions dead. War redrew borders and reshaped economies, too. Europe’s debt-financed splurge on munitions prompted a manufacturing boom in America, boosting exports and transforming it from global debtor to global creditor. Germany’s industry was hammered. Its economy only returned to the size it had been in 1913 over a decade later.

The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was one of several to carve new countries from what remained of the pre-war empires. The Baltic states, given to Germany the previous year under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which had taken Russia out of the war, became independent. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were created; Romania was enlarged; and Poland was rebuilt from former Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian territories.